Tuesday, 15 June 2010

Sports fans the world over have been watching with keen interest the ongoing Vuvuzela World Cup this week.

The long thin instrument is known as a "stadium horn" in South Africa, where it has formed the basis of one of the most popular sports in the country. With the world championships now underway, the rest of the world has also been sitting up and taking note of its distinctive buzzing monotone.

Despite having made it to the final rounds of the World Cup, many English sports fans were only recently made aware that their home nation even had an official vuvuzela team. But there can be no doubting it now, as crowds full of players have been competing in this grand tournament to see who can vuvuzel the best.

"England are the vuzuveling kings!" slurred Garthunkel Manticore, an inebriated but dedicated England supporter, as he stumbled away from the local pub at around 2am. "We're definitely gonna play those horn thingies the loudest... or furthest... or whatever it is they're trying to do. 'Course we're the best! We're England!

"Eng-er-lund!" he added.

The competitive vuvuzeliers in South Africa are being spurred on in their attempts to cause each other's eardrums serious and permanent physical damage by a minor, barely noticed spectator sport being acted out on some nearby grass by the teams' eager mascots. But the occasional actions of these "footballers", as they are locally known, have received far less coverage than the 127-decibel, locust swarm-esque cones of noise. They're all vuvuzeling like crazy over there, and there's no stopping them.